Relevant History - Author Suzanne Adair

Virginia Minor: Forgotten Suffragist

Posted on February 12, 2019 by suzanneadairFebruary 14, 2019

Relevant History welcomes Nicole Evelina, a historical fiction, non-fiction, and women’s fiction author whose six books have won more than thirty awards, including three Book of the Year designations. The TV/movie option for her book Madame Presidentess was recently acquired by Fortitude International. Her fiction tells the stories of strong women from history and today, with a focus on biographical historical fiction, while her non-fiction focuses on women’s history, especially sharing the stories of unknown or little-known figures. She is currently working on a biography of Virginia Minor. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, and Pinterest.

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When we think about the suffrage movement, a handful of “greats” come to mind, the leaders who shaped and changed the movement: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Carrie Chapman Catt. But each state had their standouts, women without whom state ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment may never have happened.

In Missouri, one such leader was Virginia Minor, who worked closely with her husband, Francis, to fight for women’s rights during her forty-year residency in St. Louis. Her involvement in the suffrage movement came in the uncertain years after the Civil War ended, when women like herself, who had tasted the power of political action and influence in supporting the war effort, faced a return to their traditional domestic lives. This unease, coupled with the tragic death of her only child, meant Virginia needed an outlet.

Instead of wasting away, Virginia channeled her rage and pain into fighting for women’s rights in Missouri. On 8 May 1867, she and four other women founded the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri, the world’s first organization dedicated solely to women’s suffrage. (It pre-dates the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, NWSA, founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the American Women’s Suffrage Association, founded by Lucy Stone, by two years.) Virginia served as the organization’s first president and spent the next two years petitioning the state legislature in favor of woman suffrage.

The New Departure
In October 1869, the NWSA convention in St. Louis, Virginia first made the argument that would change the suffrage movement and later be dubbed the “New Departure” because it was so different from anything the suffrage movement had seen to date. Citing the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, ratified only months before, she argued that women already had the right to vote, saying, “I believe the Constitution of the United States gives me every right and privilege to which every other citizen is entitled; for while the Constitution gives the States the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gives them power to prevent it.”

The passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in question states:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Virginia’s argument, which would later be taken up by Victoria Woodhull during her presidential campaign, as well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony when they addressed Congress, stated that the use of the word “persons,” rather than “males” is what allowed female suffrage. She and her husband printed pamphlets to this effect which were circulated throughout the United States. Susan B. Anthony even reprinted her argument in her newspaper, The Revolution.

Seeking to practice what she preached, Minor put her theory to the test on 15 October 1872, when she tried to register to vote. But the election registrar, Reese Happersett, would not allow it because she was female. In response, Minor, with her husband as her representative (married women could not yet sue in Missouri courts; that right would come in 1889 with the Married Woman’s Act), sued.

On 3 February 1873, arguments were heard in writing at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis without a trial or jury. The trial court ruled against the Minors, so the case was brought before the Missouri Supreme Court, who heard the case and ruled against the Minors.

Not ready to give up, Minor and her husband appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which gave the case the legal name, Minor v Happersett. Francis Minor gave an impassioned argument that denial of suffrage happened all the time, but that because national citizenship superseded state citizenship, women should be allowed to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless of what their local state laws said. He pointed to history, particularly to the example of the women of New Jersey, who had the right to vote from 1787 to 1807, to shore up his argument.

On 29 March, the Supreme Court refuted the argument, upholding the right of individual states to define who could vote within them, stating in a unanimous decision “that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one” rather that right belongs to the states. It ignored the fact that although women were citizens under the law, they didn’t have the same rights, and effectively ended the hope of a national judicial decision in women’s favor.

Persevering to the end
Though Minor’s court case failed, it gave great publicity to the cause of women’s suffrage, and Virginia kept fighting for what she believed in. She testified before the United States Senate committee on woman’s suffrage in 1889 and held the position of honorary vice president of the Interstate Woman Suffrage Convention in 1892.

When Virginia died in St. Louis two years later, she was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Because she believed the clergy were against equal rights for women, her funeral was held without any clergy members, a final thumb of her nose at the patriarchy.

In a break with tradition that said a person’s final will and testament should be kept private, Virginia’s will was published in the St. Louis newspapers because it contained two unusual bequests. Virginia left $500 apiece to her two single nieces, with the condition that if they should ever marry, the married niece should surrender her half of the inheritance to the niece who remained single. Another $1,000 was bequeathed to Susan B. Anthony “in gratitude for the many thousands she has expended for woman,” to help ensure the fight for women’s suffrage could continue on beyond Virginia’s lifetime.

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A big thanks to Nicole Evelina! She’ll give away an electronic copy of Madame Presidentess, historical fiction about Victoria Woodhull (nominated in 1872 as the first woman candidate for the United States presidency and a contemporary of Virginia Minor who likely knew her) to one person who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

The Hidden History of Ireland’s Magdalene Asylums

Posted on January 22, 2019 by suzanneadairJanuary 21, 2019

Emma Rose Millar author photo Relevant History welcomes Emma Rose Millar, who writes historical fiction and children’s picture books. She won the Legend category of the Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction with Five Guns Blazing in 2014. Her novella The Women Friends: Selina, based on the work of Gustav Klimt and co-written with author Miriam Drori, was published in 2016 by Crooked Cat Books and was shortlisted for the Goethe Award for Late Historical Fiction. Her third novel, Delirium, a Victorian ghost story published by Crooked Cat Books, was shortlisted for the Chanticleer Paranormal Book Awards in 2017. Emma’s historical poems for children are published by The Emma Press. To learn more about her and her books, follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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Inside Magdalen laundry c1925 Worked to the bone, starved, beaten, and abused: this was the fate of some 30,000 women whose care was entrusted to nuns in Ireland’s Magdalene Asylums, also known as Magdalene Laundries. These institutions were set up during the eighteenth-century to house prostitutes—so-called “fallen women”—but quickly became places of unknown cruelty and hardship, where any women and girls as young as nine, branded as “undesirable” by the Church, could be incarcerated. For over two hundred years, unmarried mothers, women deemed “promiscuous,” or those who defied their husbands or fathers could find themselves locked up in one of the asylums. Others had learning difficulties or had been the victims of rape or sexual assault. Some were sent there simply for being “too pretty.” Once there, they were starved, beaten, and forced into backbreaking work in the asylum laundries. Babies were usually taken away from their mothers and offered up for adoption.

Although these institutions were run by the Church, they were also widely supported by the Irish government. In addition to the women and girls being sent there by their families, there were also those who came from psychiatric units and prisons. The government channeled money into the asylums in exchange for housing the women and laundry services, which were provided by the inmates there.

During the twentieth century, rumours circulated about the abuses taking place in Ireland’s Magdalene Asylums, but those survivors who did speak about their experiences there were often shamed or ignored. The public did not believe that institutions run by the Church would allow or endorse such ill treatment of the women and children under their protection. Many survivors would not disclose details of what went on in the laundries, and therefore details are scant.

Gloucester Street Laundry closed in 1996 It was not until the discovery of a mass grave at Our Lady of Charity Convent in Dublin that the media became involved and printed articles questioning goings-on at the asylums. One hundred and fifty-five bodies were found in the grave, but only seventy-five death certificates had been issued. The nuns claimed there had been an administrative error, but there was a public outcry, and ultimately the United Nations called for a public enquiry. Suddenly, women began perusing cases for violations against Human Rights and making disclosures about the abuse they had suffered.

Survivors’ stories
Marina Gambold, was placed in a laundry by her local priest. She described being forced to eat off the floor after breaking a cup and getting locked outside in the cold for a minor transgression. She was made to work for ten hours a day and fed bread and dripping.

Mary Smith was placed in the Sundays Well Laundry in Cork after being raped. Nuns there told her they would look after her in case she became pregnant. Once incarcerated, her hair was cut off and she was stripped of her identity. She was forced to work in silence and to sleep in the cold. Mary does not remember how long she spent in the laundry due to the abuse she suffered.

One survivor known only as Bridget recounted being taken by the nuns to see a lady who was dying in agony. Bridget was just sixteen when the nuns said to her, “Do you see this? She has never done anything and she is suffering in agony for your sins.”

Another woman who had survived the same laundry in Cork said she was forced to spend all night in a room with a corpse. She described nuns humiliating girls who had wet the bed by wrapping their wet sheets around them and making them kneel on the dormitory floor with a sign on their back saying. “Dirty, filthy, lazy girl.”

Public outcry and enquiry
Partly due to the outcry which followed the discovery of the mass grave, the last Magdalene Asylum closed its doors in 1996. Of the forty women discovered there, most were elderly or had learning disabilities, nine had no known living relatives; all decided to stay with the nuns.

While religious institutions remained silent, a long public campaign ensued, resulting in the publication of the McAleese report, which detailed the abuse of ten thousand women in Magdalene Asylums between 1922 and 1996. The Irish government finally issued a formal apology in 2013 and set up a fund for survivors.

The Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, spoke in front of a packed parliament and apologised for what he called “a national shame.”

I on behalf of the state, the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them, and for any stigma they suffered, as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalene Laundry. For ninety years Ireland subjected these women, and their experience, to a profound indifference. By any standards it was a cruel and pitiless Ireland, distinctly lacking in mercy. We swapped our public scruples for a solid public apparatus.

Kenny’s speech was followed by a standing ovation for him and the twenty Magdalene survivors who were present in the public gallery.

Many religious groups that ran the asylums refused to contribute to the fund and have turned away researchers looking for more information. Several groups including Justice for Magdalenes and the National Women’s Council of Ireland are still campaigning for a public memorial for survivors and for compensation for children born to inmates of the asylums.

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Delirium book cover A big thanks to Emma Rose Millar! She’ll give away a paperback copy of Delirium to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.K. only.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Myth and Treachery in the Wild West

Posted on December 4, 2018 by suzanneadairDecember 5, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Mike Orenduff, who grew up so close to the Rio Grande that he could Frisbee a tortilla into Mexico from his backyard. While at the University of New Mexico, he worked as a volunteer teacher at a nearby pueblo. He eventually served as president of New Mexico State University. His books were described by the Baltimore Sun as “deliciously delightful.” Among Mike’s many accolades are the Lefty Award for best humorous mystery. His latest book, The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and, he hopes, will bring him a second Lefty Award. To learn more about him and his books, visit his page on his publisher’s site.

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Although my Pot Thief books are not historical fiction, they each include an historical thread based on the person who is in the title. For example, the working title for the sixth book in my series, The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid, was originally The Pot Thief Who Studied Lew Wallace. I had selected Lew Wallace because the centennial of New Mexico (where my books are set) was coming up, and he was New Mexico’s Territorial Governor from 1878 to 1881, during which time he published Ben-Hur. I was fascinated that someone in New Mexico during its Wild West days was at the same time writing the book that eventually became the blockbuster movie starring Charlton Heston.

According to the publisher’s introduction, Wallace said in his memoir that he wrote the final scenes by lantern light after returning from a clandestine meeting with Henry McCarty, also known as Henry Antrim and as William H. Bonney.

But best known as Billy the Kid.

Governor and gunslinger meet secretly
I wondered why Wallace met with Billy the Kid. So I did some research. On our next book signing tour in New Mexico, my wife and I detoured to the quaint village of Lincoln, New Mexico and had breakfast at The Wortley Hotel, actual motto: “No Guests Gunned Down in Over 100 Years.” Lincoln was the county seat of the county by the same name. It was the largest county in the Country until other counties were carved out of it. Carrizozo became the county seat, and Lincoln faded into obscurity. The historical buildings were taken over by the state as a museum. Because Lincoln had the courthouse, jail, sheriff’s office and saloons in its heyday, it was also the place where many episodes of the Lincoln County War played out, including Billy the Kid’s most famous jail break.

I asked our waiter about it. Because Lincoln is now more a museum than a town, everyone there is a tourist guide either formally or informally. He pointed across the street.

“Billy was over there wearing shackles and waiting to be hanged. He had been double crossed by Lew Wallace. Billy had met with Wallace and pledged to give himself up and help clear up some unsolved murders if Wallace would grant him immunity. Wallace agreed. But when Billy turned himself in, he was locked up, and they started planning his hanging.”

I walked across to the courthouse museum and a letter Billy sent to Wallace on March 4, 1881:

To Gov. Lew Wallace
Dear Sir
I wrote you a little note the day before yesterday but have received no answer. I expect you have forgotten what you promised me, but I have not and I think you had ought to have come and seen me as I requested you to. I have done everything that I promised you I would and you have done nothing that you promised me.
I think when you think the matter over, you will come down and see me, and I can then explain everything to you.
Judge Leonard passed through here on his way east in January and promised to come and see me on his way back, but he did not fulfill his promise. It looks to me like I am getting left in the cold. I am not treated right by Sherman. He lets Every Stranger that comes to see me through Curiosity in to see me, but will not let a Single one of my friends in, not even an Attorney.
I guess they mean to send me up without giving me any Show but they will have a nice time doing it. I am not entirely without friends.
I shall expect to see you some time today.
Patiently Waiting, I am truly Yours Respectfully.
Wm. H. Bonney

I was struck by the simple prose of this young man who had only two years of formal schooling. In my opinion, both his writing and his behavior were more forthright than Lew Wallace.

An outlaw keeps his word
Further research revealed why Billy the Kid was in Jail. Something I had wondered about because he was the most feared gunman in the West. He was fast on the draw, a deadly accurate shot, and had nerves of steel. Plus he had a lot of friends who would protect him. I don’t think there was a lawman alive who could’ve captured him. Turns out no one did. He turned himself in because of Wallace’s promise of immunity.

After learning that, I couldn’t put Lew Wallace in the title. I discovered that most of the residents of Lincoln County back then considered Billy the Kid a hero. That was especially true of the Hispanics. A gang led by Lawrence Murphy, a racketeer who ran the only store in the county and protected his monopoly with hired guns, ran Lincoln county like a fiefdom. All business transaction went though Murphy. He controlled the sheriff and the court. One resident was quoted as saying, “They intimidated, oppressed, and crushed people who were obliged to deal with them.”

Then powerful Texas cattleman John Chisum brought a large herd up from Texas, creating competition for Murphy. Murphy’s lawyer, a man of principle named McSween, was fed up with Murphy’s crooked ways and went to work for Chisum. Billy the Kid also quit the Murphy gang and went over to Chisum. The Chisum camp was strengthened when an eccentric Englishman named John Tunstall bought a ranch in the area and allied himself with Chisum. In addition to ranching, Tunstall set up a mercantile store in competition with Murphy. The locals abandoned Murphy’s store because Tunstall offered decent prices and fair dealings. The Murphy gang killed Tunstall. When Billy found Tunstall’s mutilated body, he vowed to kill every man involved with the murder.

So I put Billy the Kid in the title. And my publisher likes the new title because they said Billy the Kid in the title would attract attention.

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A big thanks to Mike Orenduff. He’ll give away a paperback copy of The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid or The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey (winner’s choice) to up to ten people who contribute a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winners from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

What’s the Buzz? History of the Electromechanical Vibrator

Posted on November 20, 2018 by suzanneadairNovember 19, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Ashley Sweeney, a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She spends her time equally between the Pacific Northwest and Desert Southwest. Her debut novel, Eliza Waite, is a winner of the 2017 Nancy Pearl Book Award and a finalist for four other literary awards. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Was that an electric light pole in the 1898 photo of Skagway, Alaska? No, it couldn’t be. But after digging through Skagway history, yes, in fact, Skagway was electrified before much of the continental U.S. I squealed with delight! This fact would make it possible for, well, you’ll see.

In my debut novel, Eliza Waite, Eliza’s unlikely friend, Skagway brothel owner Pearly Brown, exposes Eliza to the electromechanical vibrator during the heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Eliza says to Pearly. “I want you to show me how to use your vibration machine.”

Even 150 years ago, scientists and physicians were slow to recognize that women could experience sexual pleasure; it was commonly believed that women were “fulfilled” solely by coitus with a partner. When women lined up in droves for treatments for the symptoms of “female hysteria”—a term used in the 19th century for women who suffered from anxiety, irritability, or emotional outbursts—doctors were quick to remedy the ailment. Using their hands to massage female genitalia, doctors made a lucrative business bringing women to “paroxysm,” which they believed relieved pressure that had built up in a woman’s womb (we now know it was likely sexual frustration). Women, including Eliza, made weekly appointments with their doctors for “the cure.”

Cramped hands, sore wrists, and backaches led a British physician, J. Mortimer Granville, to patent a “percusser,” later known as the “electromechanical vibrator,” in the late 1880s. Because this new invention allowed physicians to bring women to fulfillment quickly and easily, doctors across Britain and America could now treat even more women in their burgeoning clienteles.

With the advent of electricity in American homes over the next two decades, popular ladies magazines—and even the Sears & Roebuck catalogue—advertised “personal massagers” for home use. Now women could order electric irons, sewing machines, teakettles, toasters—and personal massagers—from the pages of mainstream media.

Vibrators fell out of the public eye in the 1920s when pornographic films depicted vibrator use as scandalous. It was not until the 1970s that vibrators made a come back, thanks to the women’s rights movement. But it’s nearly impossible to find a vibrator without visiting an adult sex shop or ordering online. Surely it’s not taboo anymore? Or is it?

It’s my hope—especially in the light of the #MeToo movement—that many issues raised in the novel can be discussed openly and dealt with in the open arena instead of behind closed doors: domestic abuse, abandonment, grief, economic inequality, sexism, and sexuality.

Eliza—and Pearly—would be glad of it.

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A big thanks to Ashley Sweeney! She’ll give away a trade paperback copy of Eliza Waite to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. and Canada only.

Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Refugees Then and Now

Posted on November 6, 2018 by suzanneadairNovember 6, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Barbara Ridley, who was born in England but has lived in California for over 35 years. After a successful career as a nurse practitioner, which included publication of academic articles in peer-reviewed journals, she is now focused on creative writing. Her debut novel, When It’s Over, (She Writes Press, 2017), set in Europe during WWII, was a finalist in six awards, including the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and the American Fiction Award. Her work has also appeared in Writers Workshop Review, Ars Medica, The Copperfield Review, Blood and Thunder and Stoneboat, among other places. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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My novel When It’s Over is based on my mother’s story; she was a refugee from the Holocaust during WWII. After her death, I got the idea of writing something to preserve the memory of her experience but quickly realized there were too many gaps in my knowledge to write it as memoir. So I decided to write a novel, which gave me the freedom to make up whatever I didn’t know.

But I wanted it to be historically accurate, so I did a ton of research. Early in that process, I came upon a book on my parents’ bookshelves—this was after they had both died, but before we had cleared out the house and their hundreds of books. It was a small 1940’s style Penguin paperback called The Internment of Aliens by F. Lafitte. I was astonished to learn that thousands of Germans, Austrians, and Italians were interned in England in 1940, as “enemy aliens.”

Having lived in California for 35+ years, I was familiar with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, but I had no idea a similar large-scale internment took place in England. This occurred after the fall of France and the other nations of Western Europe, when the threat of imminent German invasion was real. But the practice of internment was very controversial, and Lafitte’s book, written at the time, was a polemical critique of the policy. Arrests were indiscriminate; confirmed Nazi sympathizers were interned along with Jews or Communists who had fled for their lives and reached Britain as refugees. Most of the internees were detained in camps for the duration of the war, or shipped overseas to Canada or Australia. In one tragic, wartime twist of fate, hundreds perished when their ship, the Arandora Star, was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat in July 1940.

My novel opens with a scene in which the protagonist, Lena, a young Czech Jewish woman (who is based on my mother), is trapped in Paris just before the Nazis overran France, unable to obtain an entry visa for Britain. Some readers have expressed surprise that she had that difficulty. I guess it’s because in hindsight, we know that people needed to flee, and that terrible things happened to those who stayed behind. My mother and all her friends had family members who eventually perished in Nazi gas chambers. So there seems to be an assumption that all good people reached out to help Jewish refugees.

But my mother and her friends did not find it easy to reach safety. They escaped in different ways, mostly illegal, or through clever manipulation of legal methods. They smuggled across borders, fabricated stories, forged domestic worker sponsorships, overstayed visitor visas. Once they reached England, they were not always easily accepted; they faced suspicion and animosity towards foreigners, or internment—when they had the most to lose in the event of a Nazi invasion.

The United States
The response from other nations was not much better. In July 1938 at the Evian Conference, delegates from 32 nations, including the United States, expressed sympathy for the Jews in Germany and Austria but made one excuse after another for not taking any refugees, in spite of calls to “act promptly.” In the United States, a 1939 Gallup poll revealed 83% of Americans were opposed to the admission of more Jewish refugees. A bill to admit 20,000 German Jewish children into the U.S. failed, with the argument: “Ugly children will soon grow up to be ugly adults.”

And then there was the tragic tale of the ship the St. Louis. In May 1939, 900 Jews left Germany for Cuba with the understanding that they would ultimately be admitted to the United States. In Cuba, only 29 were allowed to disembark. The ship then spent 35 days off the Eastern U.S. coast waiting to be accepted, before giving up and returning to Europe. Most of those on board perished in the Holocaust.

The lessons for today
Today, Europe is experiencing the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, and we have all seen images of children drowned on a beach or sitting shell-shocked in an ambulance. Desperate people are fleeing wars or persecution in Syria, Eritrea, and Afghanistan. Closer to home in the U.S., thousands are fleeing unimaginable violence in Central America—the area with the highest murder rate in the world—and risking the dangerous journey to cross into the United States. And climate change, with its extremes of drought and floods, threatens the livelihood of millions of people throughout the developed world. This is projected to unleash further waves of migration over the coming decade.

Perhaps today’s conflicts seem complex, with no easy solutions. The numbers of people seeking refuge seem overwhelming, and perhaps the antagonism and fears exploited by populist politicians seem understandable on some level. But the situation today is not that different from the 1930’s. Desperate people will always look for ways to flee to safer ground. Higher walls and militarized borders will not stop them. The only reason a mother puts her child in a rickety boat, or hands him to a “coyote” heading for the desert, is if it seems safer than staying put.

The answer is not to harden our hearts and put up barriers. We have a moral obligation to help and support refugees. And to put our resources into addressing the underlying problems: aggressive diplomatic efforts to stop ethnic cleansing, end military support for dictatorships, and a robust “Marshall-type” plan to combat global inequality and climate change, to make the world safe for everyone.

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A big thanks to Barbara Ridley. She’ll give away a paperback copy of When It’s Over to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

Myth-making

Posted on October 23, 2018 by suzanneadairOctober 23, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Carola Dunn, who was born and raised in England. After university, she set off round the world. She made it to Fiji before returning to the U.S. to get married. She started writing in 1979, and her first book, a Regency, came out in 1981. Although she has lived in America for fifty years, presently in Oregon, almost all her sixty-plus books—36 Regencies and 27 historical (1920s and 1970ish) mysteries—are set in England. She has one son, two grandchildren, and a dog. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook.

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If you grew up in England a few decades ago and went to a county primary school, chances are that you sang “The Song of the Western Men,” sometimes known as the Cornish national anthem:

A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James’s men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do!

When I learnt it in the 1950s, it was regarded as a folk song. In fact it has a pedigree, having been written in 1824 by the eccentric parson, poet, and prankster R. S. Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow, at the age of twenty. Originally published anonymously, the song was praised by the like of Scott and Macauley.

Though he based it on a 17th century Cornish folk ballad, Hawker lifted only the first three lines of the second stanza of the original.

And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!

The song is sometimes known as “Trelawny”, referring to Sir Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, Exeter, and Winchester. In 1687, he was one of seven bishops who petitioned against James II’s Declaration of Indulgence towards Catholics. The king, afraid of demonstrations against his policy, imprisoned them in the Tower, which naturally led to demonstrations in their favour, especially in Cornwall, ancestral home of the Trelawny family.

Out spake their Captain brave and bold:
A merry wight was he:
‘If London Tower were Michael’s hold,
We’d set Trelawny free!

Alas, the anonymous Captain had no force to lead. Cornish regiments had fought valiantly in the Civil War, in the Royalist cause. They had taken several towns in Devon and Somerset and had lost many of their leaders as well as troops. The regiments had not been rebuilt during the Commonwealth. Raising another force to march on London, take the Tower, and free Trelawny was out of the question. So much for…

‘We’ll cross the Tamar, land to land:
The Severn is no stay:
With “one and all,” and hand in hand;
And who shall bid us nay?

One of those Royalist leaders was Bishop Trelawny’s grandfather, Sir John, the first baronet. In promoting the cause of Charles I, he fell foul of Parliament and was imprisoned in the Tower. The king waited till the end of the parliamentary session and promptly had him released.

‘And when we come to London Wall,
A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth! come forth! ye cowards all:
Here’s men as good as you.

The old ballad appropriated by Hawker almost certainly referred to Sir John, not his grandson. He was imprisoned for only three weeks and had no need of rescue. The twenty thousand Cornishmen may be a misapplied reference to those troops he later raised to fight with the Royalists in the Civil War.

‘Trelawny he’s in keep and hold;
Trelawny he may die:
But here’s twenty thousand Cornish bold
Will know the reason why!’

Ah well, it’s a pleasing myth and a rousing song. And until I started to research it, I believed every word.

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A big thanks to Carola Dunn. To someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week, Carola will give away an autographed paperback copy of one of her “Daisy Dalrymple” or “Cornish” mysteries that’s currently unavailable in print in the U.S.—winner’s choice of title. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.

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Empress Theodora: Saint, Sinner, or Both?

Posted on October 9, 2018 by suzanneadairOctober 9, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Mary Reed, who, with Eric Mayer, co-authors the John, Lord Chamberlain, Byzantine mystery series and, writing under the transparent nom de plume Eric Reed, the Grace Baxter mysteries, set in WWII England. An Empire for Ravens, John’s latest adventures, will be published by Poisoned Pen Press in October 2018. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, blog, and author page, and follow her on Twitter.

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The depiction of Empress Theodora in our John, Lord Chamberlain mysteries is based on her character as described in contemporary historian Procopius’ Secret History.

Justinian I ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565, and once married to him, Theodora was in effect co-ruler and thus in a position help the downtrodden in various ways—and women in particular.

According to late legend she was spinning wool and living a virtuous life when Justinian, heir to the throne via his uncle Emperor Justin I, fell in love with her. We might well speculate how likely it was their paths would cross given their disparate social positions and especially her colourful past.

A notorious act
Theodora had been an actress, regarded as synonymous with prostitution. Procopius mentions her notorious semi-naked act presenting the story of Leda and the Swan, in which trained fowl pecked grain from her groin. Even before that, according to his Secret History, when prepubescent she worked in a brothel servicing customers while “still too young to know the normal relation of man with maid, but consented to the unnatural violence of villainous slaves…” Common gossip had it Theodora worked her way back to Constantinople by prostitution after being cast off by a man named Hecebolus, whom she had accompanied abroad when he became governor of Pentapolis in North Africa.

Procopius is a venomous writer, but there appears to be some truth in his allegations. John of Ephesus was a Monophysite bishop and therefore adhered to the belief Christ had but one nature, a theological distinction causing significant upheaval in the church for years. He would surely would be grateful to Theodora, who provided refuge for a number of his fellow co-religionists, going so far as to hide them in Constantinople’s Hormisdas Palace and extracting a promise from Justinian he would protect them after her death. Nevertheless, John mentions in his Ecclesiastical History that Theodora had a daughter before her marriage, and in his Lives of the Eastern Saints refers to her in an offhand manner as “Theodora who came from the brothel.”

A stumbling block overcome
But love is blind and Justinian wished to marry her. The major stumbling block was it was illegal for an actress and a man of Justinian’s rank to marry. The law had to be changed to get around the difficulty, but the problem was Euphemia, Justin’s wife, was set against such a marriage. She herself had been a slave, purchased by Justin well before he ever had any notion he would rise to be emperor. As empress Euphemia staunchly upheld imperial dignity, and it was not until she was dead that the needed legislation could be passed.

It laid down “…women who had devoted themselves to theatrical performances, and, afterwards having become disgusted with this degraded status, abandoned their infamous occupation and obtained better repute, should have no hope of obtaining any benefit from the Emperor, who had the power to place them in the condition in which they could have remained, if they had never been guilty of dishonorable acts, We, by the present most merciful law, grant them this Imperial benefit under the condition that where, having deserted their evil and disgraceful condition, they embrace a more proper life, and conduct themselves honorably, they shall be permitted to petition Us to grant them Our Divine permission to contract legal marriage when they are unquestionably worthy of it.”

Marriage brings power
Justinian and Theodora were therefore able to marry. As empress Theodora is regarded as having a hand in legislation helping those forced into prostitution, some of them only children or country girls sold by their impoverished parents or lured to the city with fine promises of a better life. It is not unlikely this was so, given both her past and Justinian’s statement that “Having reflected upon all these matters, and discussed them with Our Most August Consort whom God has given Us…We enact the present law,” in this case one forbidding the purchase of office.

Justinian’s law against pandering declared “No one shall carry on the trade of pandering, prostitute women in his house or in public for gratification of the passions, or do any other act to that end.” It commanded guilty parties to leave Constantinople, providing that “if any one hereafter takes a girl against her will and keeps her force in order to make money for himself by meretricious traffic, shall be arrested by the worshipful praetors of this fortunate city and visited with the extremest penalty.”

Help for the downtrodden
Theodora made other efforts to help these unfortunate women. An imperial building on the Asian side of the Bosphorus became a refuge known as Metanoia (repentance), and about five hundred former prostitutes were sent there. Procopius waspishly declares residency was not a matter of choice for these women, and some committed suicide by throwing themselves from a height, but he does not deny Theodora’s role in the matter.

Theodora was involved in other good works such as founding hospices and an orphanage, repairing holy buildings, charitable giving, and so on. These acts are acknowledged by an inscription in the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Istanbul, referring to her as “God-crowned Theodora whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is unsparing efforts to nourish the destitute.” Justinian was just as active in attempts to better the life of his subjects, including judicial reforms and an extensive building programme covering public works, defences, and numerous churches, most notably the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. It is worth noting the imperial couple are regarded as saints by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

It appears Theodora’s marriage to Justinian was a true love match. Even Procopius in his History of the Wars admits this to be the case, referring to Justinian’s “extraordinary love” for her. It seems to be the truth, for Justinian did not remarry after Theodora died in 548, although he survived her by seventeen years.

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A big thanks to Mary Reed. She’ll give away an electronic copy (ePub format) of An Empire for Ravens to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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Gadigal Land

Posted on September 25, 2018 by suzanneadairSeptember 25, 2018

Relevant History welcomes Patricia Leslie, a Sydney author with a passion for combining alternative history, fantasy, and action into stories that nudge at the boundaries of reality. In Keeper of the Way, Patricia “solves” a mystery over 100 years old: … Continue reading →

Medieval Beasties

Posted on August 29, 2018 by suzanneadairAugust 29, 2018

Relevant History welcomes back Jeri Westerson, author of the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels, a series nominated for thirteen national awards, from the Agatha to the Shamus. For her debut urban fantasy series, Booke of the Hidden, Publishers Weekly said, “Readers sad about the ending of Charlaine Harris’s “Midnight, Texas” trilogy will find some consolation in Moody Bog.” The next in the series, Deadly Rising, releases in October. Jeri is twice former president of SoCalMWA and OC SinC, and former vice president of SinC-LA. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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In my latest Crispin Guest Medieval Noir, called The Deepest Grave, my disgraced knight turned detective Crispin and his apprentice Jack, are called upon to investigate the graveyard of a nearby church where the priest claims that he has seen the dead walk. In the book, Crispin speaks of “Revenants” from the Latin, meaning “the returned” specifically from the dead, which implies both vampires and zombies.

Hunting a vampire isn’t easy
Let’s look at some of the historical roots of vamps first. The dead have been walking a long time. Since even before biblical accounts. Long before Bram Stoker penned his bestseller in 1897. Matthew Beresford, author of From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth, notes, “There are clear foundations for the vampire in the ancient world, and it is impossible to prove when the myth first arose. There are suggestions that the vampire was born out of sorcery in ancient Egypt, a demon summoned into this world from some other.” You’ll find the idea of vampires all around the world: Asian vampires, such as the Chinese jiangshi, evil spirits that attack people and drain their life energy; the blood-drinking wrathful deities that appear in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and from ancient Egypt.

Some vampires are said to be able to turn into bats or wolves; others can’t. Some are said not to cast a reflection, others do. Holy water and sunlight are said to repel or kill some vampires, but not others. The one universal characteristic is the draining of blood.

Hunting a vampire isn’t easy. According to one Romanian legend you’ll need a seven-year-old boy and a white horse. The boy should be dressed in white, placed on the horse, and then both set loose in a graveyard at midday. Watch the horse wander around, and wherever the horse stops, that’s a vampire’s grave. Or…there’s just really good grass there.

In Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, folklorist Paul Barber noted that centuries ago, “Often potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some defect, like when a child is born with teeth. Or with an extra nipple (in Romania); or a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip (in Russia).

The belief in vampires stems from superstition and mistaken assumptions about postmortem decay. The first recorded accounts of vampires follow a consistent pattern. Some unexplained misfortune befalls a person, family or town—a drought, disease—and then it’s blamed on a vampire.

The solution? Graves were unearthed, and surprised villagers often mistook ordinary decomposition processes for supernatural phenomenon. They assumed that a body would decompose immediately, but if the coffin is well sealed and buried in winter, putrefaction might be delayed by weeks or months; the body shrinks, making it look as if the nails and hair continue to grow. And weirdest of all to medieval people, intestinal decomposition creates bloating which can force blood up into the mouth, making it look like a dead body has recently sucked blood. In certain eastern block countries, they still believe this.

Many people in medieval England thought that corpses of evil or vengeful individuals were capable of “reanimating” in the ground and then rising from their graves to attack or harm or even kill the living. Historical accounts from Britain, Ireland, and Scotland tell of fear of revenants and blood-sucking.

A 12th-century Yorkshire cleric, William of Newburgh, described an evil man, who, escaping from justice, fled the city of York, but then died and rose from his grave. Pursued by a pack of barking dogs, he wandered through courtyards and houses while everyone locked their doors. Finally, the townspeople decided to put an end to the threat by digging up his dead body, mutilating it and burning it. This is Newburgh’s account of what happened when the townspeople opened the grave:

[They] laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons…

Zombies in long-deserted medieval Yorkshire village
Now—on to zombies. They are very closely related and can just as easily be called “revenants” as well. We see an emergence in our popular culture of zombies, but it originated from Haitian/African folklore, with the word “Zombi” being of West African origin. A witch doctor turns dead and living people into zombies. The belief in zombies in Haiti and certain places in Africa still persists today, the belief in either reanimating the dead or controlling living people to do their bidding in a perpetually dazed state.

Bringing it back to Europe, scientists from the University of Southampton completed a study of human bones from a long-deserted medieval Yorkshire village, Wharram Percy, and the study strongly suggests that they were from individuals regarded by their peers as revenants. The scientific analysis revealed that the individuals’ skeletal remains had been deliberately mutilated, decapitated and burned shortly after death. It is the first time in Britain that such skeletal evidence of a probable medieval belief in revenancy has been found. The work in Wharram Percy carried out on 11th- to 13th-century human bones is particularly important because it appears to confirm historical accounts of such beliefs.

There have been other skeletons found in eastern Europe with stones embedded in the mouths of the corpse, presumably to keep them from wandering. I guess it worked, because the bodies were still there.

Crispin and Jack must put aside their fears and superstitions to find out what’s really happening in the graveyard of St. Modwen’s parish and solve two murders before an innocent child hangs for the crime.

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A big thanks to Jeri Westerson!

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The Fadoodlin’ Etymology of Sex

Posted on August 14, 2018 by suzanneadairAugust 14, 2018

Relevant History welcomes internationally renowned author Ellen Notbohm, whose work has informed, inspired and delighted millions in more than twenty languages. In addition to her award-winning novel The River by Starlight and her perennially popular books on autism, her articles and columns on such diverse subjects as history, genealogy, baseball, writing and community affairs have appeared in major publications and captured audiences on every continent. Ellen is an avid genealogist, knitter, beachcomber, and thrift store hound who has never knowingly walked by a used bookstore without going in and dropping coin. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

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The question comes up at every reading and book club: how and where did you research? And the answer is a historical fiction echo of Johnny Cash: I’ve been everywhere, man. My research for The River by Starlight and its based-on-real-life protagonists Annie and Adam Fielding sent me across eleven states and four provinces, through the doors of seventeen libraries and archives, and cyber-consulting twenty-seven more. I thought of it as a treasure hunt, unearthing vital statistics, school, military, prison, cemetery, land, court, census, immigration, naturalization, and theological records. Voter registration. Business licenses. Insurance policies. County and state fair entries.

For historical fiction authors, our drive for accuracy in the smallest details can border on obsessive. But after ten years in hot pursuit of those details, the resource that honed my manuscript’s voice to its finest edge of historical authenticity was a human, not a repository: an eagle-eyed editor with an exuberant love of etymology.

For scenes taking place between 1910 and 1921, I’d already caught early-draft anachronisms like surreal and radar. But my editor caught upwards of a dozen more. Who knew that no one shushed anyone until 1925, that place mats and drop cloths weren’t called such until 1928, that “dust mop” didn’t come along until 1953? That little girls didn’t wear their hair in a “ponytail” and jokes didn’t have a “punch line” until 1916. Jeepers! Whoops—that interjection wasn’t around until 1927.

Blue language: some things old, something things new
But most amusing was how many of her etymological catches had to do with that universally intriguing and bestselling subject: sex. And it offered a fascinating dichotomy: as we delved into the origins of blue language (an expression dating to 1840), we learned that words we think of as contemporary may go back centuries, while words we think of as vintage are in fact relatively contemporary.

Our etymological sex education started when Adam, in a 1911 scene, needed a sarcastic simile to express his contented state of mind to a bartender. “I’m happier than a baby in a barrel of tits,” he explains, which my editor flagged for revision: Teats was in use as early as the 13th century, titties dates back to 1746, but tits didn’t come into usage until 1928. Later in the story, another character’s reference to diddies was revised to diddeys, per Merriam-Webster.

On rolls the story to where, in the face of relentless physical and mental health issues with Annie’s pregnancies in the 1910s, the couple is advised to consider using rubbers. “The condom sense of this word dates only to the 1930s,” said my editor, suggesting maybe I should revert to condom (1706). I hauled out my (highly entertaining) file of early condom advertisements, and noted that while all the packages used the terms rubber prophylactics or protectives, none used the word condom. Further research revealed that the, um, contents of a condom were the origin of one of today’s favorite insults, scumbag (1939). We settled on rubber sheath (1861).

Later still, Annie finds her virtue questioned by a mental hospital patient who hurls the insult, “Slattern!” (1630s). Not one to go quietly, Annie returns a fusillade of loose-woman epithets. Up went the editor’s flag. Seems that harlot (ca 1200), strumpet (ca 1300), trollop (1610s), hussy (1650s), and floozy (1902) were appropriate to the 1918 scene, but tramp met with the delete button because its meaning “promiscuous woman” dates only to 1922.

Surely things would mellow out for our heroine as she overcomes extreme adversity, settles into a placid spell, and can enjoy some long-overdue tender lovemaking. But no. Said my intrepid editor, “While this word has been around since the fifteenth century, its original sense was of courtship. As a euphemism for ‘have sex,’ it is attested only from c. 1950.” Disgruntled Author changed it to coupling (late 1300s), muttering that it sounds too much like hardware.

Charting word usage through time
Frequency of usage is also a factor in historical authenticity. Tools like Google Ngram use charts to visually depict word usage over centuries. Here we can see just how much that usage of the f-bomb, that ultimate in sexually-charged verbs, now turned everyday adjective, has increased—by a whopping (1620s) 23,000% since 1950. Before that it had nearly flatlined since 1820 or so, hence it pops up only once in dialogue in The River by Starlight—as an unintended double entendre, with great impact bestowed by its rarity.

But our free-wheeling contemporary use of the f-word doesn’t hold a fadoodlin’ (1611) candle to our bawdy ancestors, who in the mid-1600s used it at twice the rate we do today.

Hubba-hubba (1944)!

Resources:
o Online Etymology
o Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition), Merriam-Webster Unabridged (website)
o A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English, Abridged from the Seven-volume Work, Entitled: Slang and Its Analogues (Farmer & Henley, 1905)
o Dictionary of American Regional English (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985)

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A big thanks to Ellen Notbohm. She’ll give away a trade paperback copy of The River by Starlight to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. only.

Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

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